Tonight
Dress for a formal celebration hosted by the core healer
This invitation permits one person and one person only
She handed it back to Becky, and they glanced at each other with knowing expressions before looking away.
“It would appear whoever left us these sought to lure us with individually compelling reasons,” Blade said, studying and then holding out his invitation for both to see.
Both angling their heads closer, Evie and Becky looked at the invitation Blade held.
To Blade Gushiken
Briar’s Peak
Tonight
Dress for a formal celebration hosted by the core healer
This invitation permits one person and one person only
“That’s it?” Evie pulled the invitation closer, reading it over one more time to be sure. “Yours doesn’t have a reason the way mine and Becky’s do. Why would you come at all, then?”
Blade shrugged, looking sheepish. “It said ‘celebration,’ so I thought there would be free food.”
Becky shook her head at him. “You are a reprobate.” She smoothed her invitation carefully. “This is obviously a ploy to get us all to this place. I say we go inform the boss immediately.”
Evie urged them both to the side of the gravel path, hidden from view of prying eyes. “We’re almost there—we may as well go investigate whatever this is together and then report back to the boss what we find.”
“I don’t like it,” Becky grumbled, uncomfortably pulling at the sleeves of her dress.
“Shocking.” Blade smiled, offering each woman an arm. Evie wrapped her hand around his upper arm, and Becky stomped forward beside them, refusing to meet either of their eyes.
“We’re walking right into a very obvious trap,” she grumbled, pushing the hood of her cloak up over her head.
“True, but at least we know that going in,” Blade said, then raised one brow at Becky. “Why are you even here if you thought it could be a trap? Why didn’t you take that right to the boss?”
Rebecka looked for a moment like a cornered animal before glancing away. “Because…there was a chance it wasn’t. And I had to know.”
Evie smiled sympathetically, showing her invitation to Becky. “Me too.”
Becky nodded stiffly. “Do you think anyone else from the office received one?”
“We’re about to find out,” Blade said, gesturing to the glow of light and noise coming from farther into the wooded path. “It seems the festivities have already begun.”
It was the first time Evie had heard the word “festivities” as a threat. In fact, it sounded a bit like death.
Chapter 41
Evie
There were lights everywhere.
Briar’s Peak was seated at Hickory Forest’s cliff ledge. There was a steep clearing on this side, far enough of a drop that there needed to be a flimsy wooden bridge connecting one side of the forest to the other. The bridge—a generous word for it—had enough planks missing that it may as well have just been two thick ropes tied together. But the rickety thing was hardly the focus.
Not when the decadent opulence spread before Evie’s eyes was demanding all her attention.
The trees surrounding the peak were decorated in floating candles, orbed in light to keep them from incinerating the leaves and branches around them. Music and laughter sprinkled the air like confetti, and warmth brushed over Evie’s bare shoulders as she removed her cloak.
Blade whistled low. “You clean up well, my friend.” His smile was warm, unlike the daggers Becky glared at Blade before slipping off into the fray of people swaying to the sounds of the musicians’ chords.
Evie tsked at Blade, lightly shoving him. “Why didn’t you say anything about the way Becky looked? Your mouth was open for a whole minute when she showed up.”
Blade sighed and rubbed a hand through his thick black hair. “Because the things I was thinking when I saw her in that dress weren’t fit for mixed company.”
Evie ducked away from a drunken couple stumbling past her, no doubt to do some of the illicit things Blade was talking about. “That was more information than I needed, to be honest.”
“You asked.” He smiled suggestively.
“How rude of you to point out things that are absolutely true.” Evie turned away from him, catching sight of Becky before she disappeared into the crowd once more. “Well, I hope she knows what the deadlands she’s doing, because I sure don’t.”
They passed by a long table of unfamiliar dishes, the shapes and colors of the food almost seeming from another world. Even the wine was a thick silver, unlike anything she’d ever seen.